L.A. County supports temporary rent control for mobile homes

Share this:

Los Angeles County Supervisors supported a six-month moratorium on rent hikes greater than 3 percent a year. The measure could be a prelude to reinstatement of rent control for mobile homes in unincorporated parts of the county. (Photo by Jeff Collins, the Orange County Register/SCNG)

Unincorporated portions of Los Angeles County could see rent control for mobile homes reinstated more than 23 years after county leaders allowed similar restrictions to lapse.

On a 3-1 vote Tuesday, Aug. 14, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors supported a six-month moratorium on rent hikes greater than 3 percent for mobile home spaces. The stop-gap measure is designed to keep park owners from raising rent before a permanent rent control ordinance under review takes effect.

“This ordinance, I think, will protect mobile home (owners) from excessive hikes in rent,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn, saying the goal is to keep more people from falling into homelessness.

However, an effort to impose the rent cap as an “urgency” measure went awry after Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas announced he would abstain. Urgency measures, which are effective immediately, require a minimum of four votes. A regular ordinance requires a second review, now scheduled for Sept. 4. The measure would become effective 30 days after a second vote.

If adopted, L.A. County will join about 100 local California jurisdictions with rent control for mobile homes, including about 32 cities in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the Golden State Manufactured-home Owners League.

The measure will affect about 8,500 mobile home spaces in unincorporated portions of the county, the proposed ordinance states, or about a sixth of the 48,000 mobile homes countywide.

Los Angeles County adopted rent control for mobile homes in 1988, but allowed the ordinance to expire in January 1995.

Rent control has become a hot-button issue throughout the state amid steadily rising rents and an acute housing shortage, with citizen initiative drives in 15 California cities over the past two years. Proposition 10, a statewide initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot, would ease rent control restrictions, allowing rent control for newer apartments as well as for houses and condos.

The new L.A. County rent control measure would apply only to mobile home tenants with leases of 12 months or less. Park owners could petition for bigger rent hikes if they believe a 3 percent cap prevents them from earning a reasonable return.

Some mobile home tenants said they believe 3 percent is too high and that rents should be frozen. Among them, 13-year-old Tom Long.

“My family’s rent is very high. Now it’s over $1,050,” he said. “… Please also lower the rent.”

“The increase in the cost of rent has been a top concern for residents,” said Pamela Agustin-Anguiano, an East Los Angeles community organizer and one of 14 speakers. “They have had to choose whether to break up their families to stay in the communities they love or move away from L.A. County. Some live in overcrowded conditions. … This is a reality that’s heartbreaking.”

Park owners and their representatives disputed claims, however, that landlords are insensitive to their tenants, noting that some froze the rent on their own during the housing crisis that ended 6 1/2 years ago. As a result, their rents are below market rates.

“We have always cared about our residents and been aware of the financial burden of rising housing costs,” saidJeff Ruffner, operator of family-owned mobile home parks in Castaic. “Additionally, it’s just not good business practice to price people out of their homes and end up with vacant spaces.”

“Our members are mostly mom-and-pop family businesses who save for years to build or buy a mobile home park,” added Jarryd Gonzales, a regional representative for the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association. “There’s no evidence to suggest there’s a widespread problem with rent increases from mobile home parks. Research from the county shows only 34 mobile home complaints in the last 3 1/2 years. And of those, only 10 were rental related.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she opposed the temporary rent cap out of concern for the many mom-and-pop mobile home park operators in her district.

“I feel as though we are attacking the symptom, not the cause,” Barger said. Part of the solution could be a pilot program to use county land for more “fabricated home” production.

“My issue is more about the fact that I don’t think this is going to fix the problem,” she said.

For more than a decade, Jeff Collins has followed housing and real estate, covering market booms and busts and all aspects of the real estate industry. He has been tracking rents and home prices, and has explored solutions to critical problems such as Southern California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. Before joining the Orange County Register in 1990, he covered a wide range of topics for daily newspapers in Kansas, El Paso and Dallas. A Southern California native, he studied at UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. He later earned a master’s degree from the USC School of Journalism.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.